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Deadline: Legal Blog-Sean 'Diddy' Combs argues 'freak offs' protected by First Amendment
The hip-hop mogul is trying to get the counts for which he was convicted thrown out ahead of his October sentencing.
DIDDY STILL DOESN’T BELIEVE HE DID ANYTHING WRONG!
— Tabby (@tabbys-corner.bsky.social) 2025-08-01T11:38:53.678Z
Sean 'Diddy' Combs argues 'freak offs' protected by First Amendment www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/sean-diddy-combs-acquittal-motion-new-trial-freak-offs-rcna222330
Is there a First Amendment right to “freak off”?
That would be one of the more unusual legal questions ever presented to the Supreme Court.....
Such motions are long shots, but the claims in Combs’ court filing are still worth paying attention to, because in the likely event that the trial judge rejects them, they could signal the arguments to come on appeal. Combs’ lawyers are separately seeking his release pending his Oct. 3 sentencing, writing that their client “may be the only person currently in a United States jail for being any sort of john, and certainly the only person in jail for hiring adult male escorts for him and his girlfriend, when he did not even have sex with the escort himself.”
That same notion animates Combs’ acquittal motion, which casts the case against him as unprecedented and targeting constitutionally protected activity. For example, his lawyers wrote: “The freak-offs and hotel nights were performances that he or his girlfriends typically videotaped so they could watch them later. In other words, he was producing amateur pornography for later private viewing. This is protected First Amendment conduct that no substantial government interest justifies prohibiting, since the films depicted adults voluntarily engaging in consensual activity.”
When they announced the charges against him last year, prosecutors called the freak offs “elaborate sex performances that COMBS arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded,” for which he “used violence and intimidation, and leveraged his power over victims — power he obtained through obtaining and distributing narcotics to them, exploiting his financial support to them and threatening to cut off the same, and controlling their careers.”
They said he “also threatened his victims, including by threatening to expose the embarrassing and sensitive recordings he made of Freak Offs if the women did not comply with his demands.”
That would be one of the more unusual legal questions ever presented to the Supreme Court.....
Such motions are long shots, but the claims in Combs’ court filing are still worth paying attention to, because in the likely event that the trial judge rejects them, they could signal the arguments to come on appeal. Combs’ lawyers are separately seeking his release pending his Oct. 3 sentencing, writing that their client “may be the only person currently in a United States jail for being any sort of john, and certainly the only person in jail for hiring adult male escorts for him and his girlfriend, when he did not even have sex with the escort himself.”
That same notion animates Combs’ acquittal motion, which casts the case against him as unprecedented and targeting constitutionally protected activity. For example, his lawyers wrote: “The freak-offs and hotel nights were performances that he or his girlfriends typically videotaped so they could watch them later. In other words, he was producing amateur pornography for later private viewing. This is protected First Amendment conduct that no substantial government interest justifies prohibiting, since the films depicted adults voluntarily engaging in consensual activity.”
When they announced the charges against him last year, prosecutors called the freak offs “elaborate sex performances that COMBS arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded,” for which he “used violence and intimidation, and leveraged his power over victims — power he obtained through obtaining and distributing narcotics to them, exploiting his financial support to them and threatening to cut off the same, and controlling their careers.”
They said he “also threatened his victims, including by threatening to expose the embarrassing and sensitive recordings he made of Freak Offs if the women did not comply with his demands.”